And I will show you the other side ...The never ending search...o open and you have the key ...amer catch your own sun ...Dreamer it's not the time to run ...t reaching your own sun ...ill show you what's beyond the dark ...I will guide you to the light ...The never ending search...o open and you have the key ...amer catch your own sun ...Dreamer it's not the time to run ...t reaching your own sun ...amer catch your own sun ...Dreamer it's not the time to run ...t reaching your own sun

burning fire across the oceans far ...The legends of the seven seas and myst... sailing on towards the sun ...To the island of the everlasting chosen ...Face our fear along the way our freedom wil...The crown and the shining light ...shment and anger in the fire of your soul ...Prepare the eternal fight ...ding this land from the sins of man ... onwards stare into the sun ... another day across the distant skies ...Where the dawn above the winter moonlight shines upon the fall of our lives ...ss anger rising far beyond the dark ...In the name of truth and j...Face our fear along the way our freedom wil...The crown and the shining light ...shment and anger in the fire of your soul ...Prepare the eternal fight ...Can you not feel the eternal pain ...The torture begins and ...othing to save when the soul is gone ... onwards stare into the sun...

Blazing sun and a bitter death ...e a guardian across the gate ...Wake up the witches wait ...For you remember the mirror ...And the born in the middle of Margret ...me's there's joy in the air ...The hard the one dies when you w...Turn the wheel again ...Cry out, the land needs blood ...Inside the rain we'll all wait...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the page ...Come turn the page ...We arise from the envelope? (now) ...The moment stay we sing...The love we blessed a c...know there is light beyond the dark ...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the page ...Come turn the page ...The myth of life you ho...We cry out, the land needs blood ...The change of season ...reasure (We praise) the new beginning ...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the wheel ...Come turn the page ...Come turn the page

n to me children of the night ...Beyond the doors of darkness y...Beyond the doors of the dark ...Under the darkened haze ...Under the moon and sun ...Oh, beyond the doors of the dark yeah ...Beyond the doors of the dark ...All the walls are closing i...Beyond the doors of the dark ...Beyond the doors of the dark ...Beyond the doors of the dark ...Beyond the doors of the dark

The gate is closed, the sky is burning ...Dark clouds are closing ...Predicted the mankind's fall ...Somewhere above - beyond the lunar skies ...e we done - we paid the highest price ...No shelter for the undeserving masses ...Into space and beyond ...Heed the terminal call ...Counting the stars - we pulled the shortest straw ...rrvivors picking up the pieces ...Even the dark has a silver lining...ining bright so far beyond the sun ...So this is the new beginning ...Even the dark has a silver lining...ining bright so far beyond the sun ...Even the dark has a silver lining...ining bright so far beyond the sun

We are riding for the battle field in for...Fury of the darkest evil cry fo...Far beyond the boundaries of hell ...On the road to lands unkno...Through the caverns far below o...Onwards through the ice and snow foreve...ghting full of hate the time has come now ...Stand and sound the guns of glory cry f...otten lands towards the distant sun ...And in the darkness shinning far beyond the starlight ...ng is striking from the dark dawning shadows ...And in the kingdom of the everlasting sun ...When the glory of the master's time has c...Into the fires of forever we will fly through the heavens ...With the power of the universe we stand s...Trough the forced of power, it will soon reach the hour ...ry we ride, Fury of the Storm! ...We are the chosen one we can n...Spilling all the blood on the fires below ...Smashing through the boundaries with the fire and fury ...Killing all the mortals down the widng road ...ll fires are raging the storm growing stron...On the path to victory towards the distant sun ...And in the darkness shinning far beyond the starlight ...ng is striking from the dark dawning shadows ...And in the kingdom of the everlasting sun ...When the glory of the master's time has c

The Testament Of The Winds: ...ars ago, they ruled the globe. But the pressing fist of great power carried a heavy price, and now their dominion has fallen beyond time and shadow. Look now, to the interior world... ...The Explorer: ...hap even crafted by the same vaunted cartographer as the infamous Piri Reis ...addled gaze gleamed the knowledge of someth...in axial portals to the inner reaches... one at the very polar pinnacle of the world, the other hidden beneath the lost ice-bound megalopolis! (See also: "In Search Of The Lost Cities Of Anta...Seeking answers to the cryptic riddles of the universe, ...Secrets of the blackest (most impenetrable) deeps of the umbra, ...eave a path through the massing Arctic ice,...Agleam with all the colours of the aurora, ...Far beyond Ny Alesund lies our...il, agleam with all the colours of the aurora, ...The portal to the tenebrous cryptic c...deograms (dreams of the Xtaxehedron?), ...Conjuration of the inner world's (tene...rogenitors, spawned beyond the outer-world night. ...was far beyond the nighted void of our own outer-world! The legacy of the First Ones, spawn of the Mera! But, it is here written that one day, when even the War of the Lexicon and the cataclysmic Great Chaos War have faded to naught but distant memory, a great conflict shall be waged between the forces of Order and the dread avatars of the Z'xulth. Vile fiends of the Outer Darkness, They-Who-Lurk-And-Breed-In-Limbo, The Dewllers In Eternal Shadow unleashed through The Gate To That Which Lies Beyond! The Black Galaxy disgorges its malignant horrors! Mankind shall suffer inestimably at the hands of these sini... and monads beneath the earth... A Vril-Sun rising! ...lline watch-dogs of the chasmed deeps, ...(For the gleaming jewels of ...damantine fiends of the threshold, ...Spawn of the ersatz interior sun. (Behold, a vast plasma-fuelled crystalline illuminatory orb... a vril-sun rising! And marvel at the colossal terra-forming machineries of the First Ones!) ...The Testament Of The Winds: ...Far, far beneath the surface of this coruscating sphere, at the very core of our my...the true path to man's dark destiny beyond the heavens...

lingers at the borders of our mind...steries spinning in the dark ...in the frozen emptiness of...to the new frontiers that ...the ancient ways have f...we might share the corners of our live...melting through the frozen wastes of ti...to navigate the seas of the sun ...to navigate the seas of the sun ...we'll navigate the seas of the sun ...to navigate the seas of the sun ...flowers in the garden of the gods ...now beyond the earth ...beyond all things that gav...nstein doesn't mind the chance ...well beyond the earth ...beyond all things that gav...god he doesn't mind the chance ...flowers of the soul ...flowers of the soul

Episode I: The Fall of the Shadow-King ...Episodes II & III: The History of the Great Wars ...Episodes IV-VI: The Rise of the Imperium ...Episode VII: The Quest for the Trinity of Might ... VIII: And Lo, When The Imperium Marches Against Gul-Kothoth, Then Dark Sorceries Shall Enshroud The Citadel Of The Obsidian Crown (recounted on the second Bal-Sagoth album; "Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne O...Episode IX: The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...(here recounted on the sixth Bal-Sagoth album; "The Chthonic Chronicles...Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn ...Episode XI: The Battle of the Nine Armies (The War of the Crown) ...Episode XII: The Great Rebellions and the Dissolution of the Imperium ...The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...Chapter 11: The Siege Begins ...And so the mighty and resplendent armies of the Imperium assembled before the towering cyclopean walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth. It was some time before the billowing dust cloud raised by the massed arrival of the vast imperial host settled, ultimately dissipating as the shadows of dusk descended. With nightfall, the imperial army's countless torches, braziers and cookfires illumined the dark plain before the fortress like a coruscating sea, painting the stygian heavens the colour of flame. And the high summer's night passed swiftly. At length, the dawn approached tentatively, and with the first signs of the newborn sun etching its promise upon the skies, the martial preparations commenced in earnest. A brief and perfunctory exchange between the Imperial Herald and the fortification's Watch Commander held no surprises, and the Emperor's banner was duly driven into the seared earth before Gul-Kothoth with a chilling finality. Vast siege engines and powerful ballistae were hauled inexorably into position, alongside a battery of katapelte and petrobolos. The one hundred thousand strong Imperial Frontier Army, having planted their regimental blazons into the arid soil, waited with a disciplined patience born of never having met defeat in pitched battle or siege, the dreaded Imperial War-Leopards straining noisily against their iron-link leashes to the rear of the cohorts of conscripts and auxillieries. The pitiless Iron Phalanx and their Lord Militant Commander had assumed position at the head of the army's Alpha Wing, polished swords, spears and poll-axes reflecting the glow from the myriad torches and braziers which still burned about the Imperial Host. And behind them were drawn up the legendary Legion of the Ebon Tiger, Pride of the Emperor, the infantry and cavalry famed throughout the Great Northern Continent, personal regiment of the feared general Baalthus Vane. True to their martial reputation, the six thousand strong Legion were inscrutible in their jet black armour, their sable banner billowing in the chill breeze which skittered over the plain. And finally, astride his azure-shaffroned warhorse and surrounded by his elite guard, the silvern-armoured Emperor Koord himself studied the precipitious gates with a disdainful scrutiny. At the Emperor's right hand was the renowned Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku, an eastern bladesman of preternatural skill and the most revered and expensive mercenary in the Imperium. At his left, the infamous Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake brooded silently, swathed in a stygian cloak and fuliginous cowl and exuding an aura of implacable malevolence which unerved even the bravest of the Imperial troops. The Emperor had deemed the services of these two nefarious renegades pivotal to the execution of the Final Campaign, for they alone had knowledge of the mysterious arcane rite known as The Words Which Unfette...ime-worn palisades, the defenders of Gul-Ko...THE EMPEROR KOORD: General Vane, we begin the final stage of this campaign with the rising of the sun. This war which has raged for decades shall finally be decided here, before the hoary walls of ageless Gul-Kothoth. The Imperium's last and most glorious victory is at hand. The procrastinating sybarites of the bureaucracy have been threatened and bribed into compliance over this venture. This more than anything else is why I have deigned to grace this final battle with my Imperial presence, even against the advice of the Grand Vizier and the sage counsel of the Seers. ...hall enjoy watching the Ebon Tiger bloody i...THE EMPEROR KOORD: You should not call in your falcons before the hunt is done, my loyal servitor. Overconfidence is but one of the many foes a general must face upon the field of war. Today, the precepts and maxims of the Imperium shall be tested, and we shall see whether the velvet glove of diplomacy or the iron gauntlet of conquest has proved the more effective tool...BAALTHUS VANE: The days of the feudal suzerainties are long gone, my liege. The Imperial Military Council is the only entity fit to govern the dominions. The fall of Vyrgothia shall today render the truth of the Imperial Mandate se...THE EMPEROR KOORD: And yet I am vexed, for as you well know, the sorcerous emmisary I despatched to the Court of the Over-King has warned that the Vyrgothians may have recovered one of the artefacts comprising the fabled Trinity of Might; the legendary Obsidian Crown itself! In the hands of a skilled thaumaturgist, it is said that the Crown may be used a...BAALTHUS VANE: The Shadow-Sword! The Obsidian Crown! The Ebon Sceptre! Feh! The power of the Trinity is but a myth! No antiquated trinket weilded by a religious fanatic will prevail against the Legion, sire. Our steel is proof against such diabolism! Behold! Gul-Tryarch has fallen, Gul-Azlaan has been given to the earth, Gul-Nomedes is naught but smouldering rubble, and soon we shall surge over the shattered remnants of Gul-Kothoth's renowned walls! The Vyrgothian Alliance shall crumble when these gates are breached, and the Over-King himself s...THE EMPEROR KOORD: Indeed. At any rate, I have been blessed with foresight enough to prepare a contingency should the foe fulfil that fearful potential which has been weighing heavy on my mind. But now, the sun rises! Let it begin! Let the final chapter of our legend be written! Give the word! Raze Gul-Kothoth to the ground! ...The Imperial War-Skalds...The thunder of the battlefield, ...The clarions call, bring down the wall! ...May the Empire's glory neve...The Wizards of Vyrgothi... of night, Crown of the Elder King, ...Unfettered at last the Trinity of Might, the Sceptre, the Sword and the Ring! ...Chapter 12: The Fall of Gul-Kothoth... was unleashed upon the field of battle. Colossal stones, firebrands and howling iron-tipped missiles rained pitilessly down upon the hero-hewn walls of Gul-Kothoth. Vast and serpentine cracks appeared in the ancient cyclopean edifice, and hundreds of warriors, both attackers and defenders, perished in the fray, either crushed beneath the ceaselessly assailed testudo, hammered to crimson pulp by the merciless storm of unforgiving stone, or burned to blackened husks by the nightmare onslaught of flaming quicklime and saltpetre. Scaling ladders raised and repulsed in turn, storms of razor tipped shafts exchanged by the combatants, isolated skirmishes raging upon the ramparts, men blade to blade and clarions bellowing embattled defiance. For seemingly inumerable hours the sanguineous battle raged, with no quarter asked nor given between the bitter ancestral foes. And the gates held firm. ...At length, the mightiest of the Empire's iron-hooded battering rams, dubbed The Bringer of Woe, was brought to bear upon the besieged fortress, and, with the shadows of dusk lengthening upon the field of war, the centuries old Primary Gate of Gul-Kothoth was finally sundered amidst an earsplitting cacophony of shattering oak and iron louder than any storm-born thunderclap. With the rending of the mighty gate, and vast fragments of the ancient walls yielding, buckling and crashing to the blood-sodden earth, the Imperium's forces breached the defenses of Gul-Kothoth and surged into the Vyrgothian Alliance...re and ten, bearing the Obsidian Crown, arrived upon the field of battle. ...Chapter 13: The Wizards Do Battle ...THE SORCERER: By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus! They come! They come, weilding the Circlet of Night! The dire warning issued to me as I stood before Vyrgothia's Master Wizard has been proved no idle boast! The citadel's spells of containment breached... the Black Crown is upon...THE EMPEROR KOORD: It is as I have forseen! Be spry, my sorcerous lackey... join the Iron Phalanx in ent...THE SORCERER: By your c...At once, the far-feared and martially renowned Iron Phalanx wheeled to face the newcomers, and at the command of a decurion, a volley of armour-piercing shafts screamed skywards to rain down mercilessly upon the foe. And even as this transpired, the Emperor's Prime Sorcerer, emissary of the Imperial Court and master of those arts which speak to man in narcotic dreams from the darkest and most silent places, summoned forth that black potency which lay entwined in stygian tendrils within his mind... an ireful power born of they who writhed upon the shores of Pangaea before man's progenitors ever erected their lofty spires to the restless skies. And yet Vyrgothia's Master Wizard, unrivalled Arch-Mage and adept of that lost Eastern order who journey beyond the boundaries of time and space upon those nebulous wings born of the sacred Azure Lotus, rose to meet this power which lapped at the periphery of his mi... arid field of war, the sentinels of light and shadow spoke to eachother in tongues dormant since the Third Moon fell burning from the heavens, and not sweet were the words they uttered....Until at last, with the armies poised to clash, and with dusk painting the sky a deep crimson exceeded in its vibrancy only by that bloody rubicund hue which stained the battlefield below it, the Emperor's mage fell, and the aeons-old might of the Obsidian Crown was finally brought to bear against they who had breached the walls of ancient Gu...The Imperial War-Skalds...Sundered, the gate of the ancient fortress, ... Now breached stand the walls. ...Behold! The Obsidian Crown. ...Embattled, the wizards, their weap...Untramelled, the circlet, the Prime-Sorcerer slai...The Crown's peerless power, the Emperor's bane, ...Dark magicks and havoc, ...Like the prow of a blood-hungry vessel of war rending the waves of a midnight sea, a luminescent blade of shrieking cerulean light lanced from the legendary black circlet locked tight within the gnarled hand of the Master Wizard, and clove mercilessly into the glorious ranks of the Imperium. And all who were touched by this ruinous arc of coruscating radiance knew no more... Men and beasts reduced to blackened husks, charred shells of smouldering ash, lifeless effigies which toppled to the seared earth to be dissipated by the whispering breath of the wind. Again and again the ravaging radiance smote the ranks of the Empire, leaving a noisome charnel-pit of nightmare in its crackling wake. The forces of the Imperium were plunged into a howling vortex of disarray, and, faced with the unthinkable prospect of defeat, the unprecedented first routing of the Emperor's glorious army began to become a grim reality. Yet for all the unparalleled carnage which had erupted about them, there was one regiment of Imperial troops for whom the taste of fear was bland compared to the sharp tang of rage ...LTHUS VANE: By all the gods of war! Stand fast, hounds of the Imperium! 'Tis true... steel is no use against this ignoble magical trickery! But if our souls are bound for the Pit this day, we'll damn well take a few of these bastards with us! Onward, my Legion! Alpha formation, banners high! Glory to the Emperor! Into the foe! Show them the Tiger's claws! ...THE LEGION: Never quarter, never mercy, never retreat! Praise the Emperor! ...THE EMPEROR KOORD: My sorcerous thrall has fallen, but he has bought us time enough to riposte! And General Vane's mettle may yet turn the tide of war back in our favour. Now, let the final act be played out! I call thee forth, Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake! I call thee forth, Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku! It is time! Now, I charge thee, for the glory of the Imperium... Speak the Words Which Unfette...And so, it began... the two pivotal players in the Emperor's plan, the two key figures in the Imperium's contingency, stepped forth to fill their most vital of roles in that grand theatre of carnage which now ran unchecked on the field of battle. ...The Ogre-Mage and the Swordmaster began to utter fearsome words in a tongue which was ancient ere the gleaming stars shifted upon the fathomless countenance of the distant heavens, words which in truth were not words, but rather a resonant key which would aspire to unlock a dire power which had reposed shackled since the fall of the legendary Shadow King himself, whose ebon circlet's power they even now sought to thwart. The incantation they gave voice to in the midst of that sanguineous turmoil which engulfed them was not so much heard by those within earshot as perceived, sensed as a vague disturbance in the fabric of reality, as fuliginous ripples on the surface of a hitherto still and placid pool, growing ever larger and more far reaching; an unnerving and unnamable sense of change which insinuated itself into the mind of the listener and suggested with a cold and disturbing quasi-certainty that something of preternaturally ineffable magnitude was transpiring, as surely as a festering and gangrenous corpse would split to spill its noisome gore. And as that maddeningly implacable incantation reached its resounding climax, a momentary silence enshrouded the battlefield, swathing the vista of chaos in an aura of noiselessness more pure and untainted than the tranquility of the boundless and stygi...urable instant that the dark and peerless power unfettered by those grim pseudo-words finally, ultimately, made itself known before the sundered gates of a...nued in: Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn

The rollin' river is no...The crops are dyin' in the harsh sunlight ...The dust on his tongue ...The fatted calf is down...Alone in the city and she's only...The boy left her black and blue on the ...She walks in the shelter, they say ... there's promise in the morning sun ...As the dark surrenders to the dawn ...Beyond the picket fences and the oil wells ...The happy endings and the fairy tales ...Is the reality of shattere...Its the family that grieves...Its the soldier that won't leave til the ...Its the addict trying to tu...in' yourself up off the ground ... there's promise in the morning sun ...As the dark surrenders to the dawn ... there's promise in the morning sun ...As the dark surrenders to the dawn ...He stands in the field, cooled by ...The winds of change

Well you never flew the colours ...Well, I remember the summer ...And then I heard the band play ...And the sun broke through the sky ...We were watching at the crossroads ...Right into the side of you ...A dark horse ...Because you rode the land alone ...ut you know I think the real reason ...The sun will always shine ...When we cross the final line ...When we cross the line ...Will you meet me on the other side ...Seven million miles beyond the sun

In a land, far beyond the sun ...Rules the darkness, faceless ...rs which raise into the sky ...Blood is covering the mighty walls ...No one ever saw the light ...Oh, slaves of the night ...He's mean to die, the ruler took his crow...The wind howles through the emtiness ...fferent sound as in the past ...Screameng echoes in the lanes ...Oh, victims of the pain ...The clouds passing by, a hole breaks the sky ...Light refract the dark and fills the place ...Gallops through the sky to break the chains ...The winged horse lands by the one ... snorts and stamps, the escape has just beg...The chains are broken, silence fills the place ...He backs the horse with his last...The white horse rears a...To reach the sky and search the kings ...The one will lead to wi...Oh, rulers of the past ...The clouds passing by, a hole breaks the sky ...Light refract the dark and fills the place ...The white winged horse ...Gallops through the sky to free the land ...The white horse rears a...The kings return, armed...To retake the land and banish evi...They fight againist the shadows, captured souls of the dark might ...Dethrone, the evil ruler to bring the sun to the night. ...The battle takes heavy ...Now the land is free again ...The clouds passing by, a hole breaks the sky ...Light refract the dark and fills the place ...Gallops through the sky to free the land ...ws creeping through the lanes ...Evil creatures of the expelled magician

Facing the darkness ...The light's gone away ...The triumph of shadow i...the mighty one screamed...Smashed down the light ...allied the elves and men ...a dark tale ends ...in the darkness ...to the right place ...children of the sun ...born in the east ...towards the sunshine ...when the day comes ...the field was lost ...the sun went down ...beyond the sea ...dark was the hour ...which contains all the grief ...renowned the deeds ...and the victims of defeat ...with the master of fate ...I smashed down the light ...I smashed down the light

feelings numb, gone the sky ...Loss of sight, no sun no dawn ...Void beyond hellfilled fate, sh...Void beyond ......

With the morning of the fox, that rocks the box ...e fades away, on to the next day ...The weatherman predicts...aid back and feelin the cool breeze ... vibes in sauce and the melodies ...etch out my hut and beyond the sun rises ...Children scared of the thunder roarin ...Given the light but now there... The sun will shine and now the sky is gray ...The pavement sweats as ...Hopin the feelin, will keep o...d a young girl hits the ground ...Someone wasn't in the mood for playin aro...The mother cries as she...ool while playin in the hot sun ...ame and cleared out the area ...Covered her up so the sun won't beat her {Lah...The sun still shines but the day now feels gray ...The sun still shines but the day now feels gray ... The sun will shine and now the sky is gray ...WJBS and in the studio right now the Jungle Brothers ... say a few words to the people ...The sun shinin, the guidin light ...The fire that we all at...The only thing is you c...u can kiss me where the sun don't shine ...little light, under the sun, ...under the sun, under the sun, under the sun.." ...Work towards the star that gives off the brightest light ...Stay out the dark and you'll find tha...little light, under the sun